Mind and matter - how meditation has changed my world

As I write this, I’m sitting in the park on my lunch break, watching a guy meditate. Wait, that sounds creepy. I’m not *watching* him, he just happens to be in my line of vision. He’s sitting in lotus position, with his hands in mudra, completely consumed in stillness while the world continues to beat its crazy tune around him. My attention keeps coming back to him – in a non-creepy way, just want to make that clear – because he is meditating. In public. And no-one is looking.

This is a wonderful thing, because it shows how far our consciousness has evolved. It’s now acceptable for someone to meditate in public and not attract attention from anyone. (Except me, obvs, BUT I’M NOT A CREEPER, OK?!)

Meditation used to be regarded as the domain of lentil-loving hippies and daydreaming types. No longer. Celebrities such as Russell Brand, Miranda Kerr, Hugh Jackman and Lena Dunham are all devotees, and from the meditation workshops I’ve attended over the years it’s clear a wide spectrum of people are on board with this life-affirming practice. And given the immense benefits from meditation – it slows your heart rate (as I found out in dramatic fashion), calms your central nervous system and improves just about every function of your body – I’d wager this is not a passing trend. Simply by meditating regularly, people are becoming calmer, more emotionally resilient, less stressed, more centred, more loving and more present. That’s some serious power right there.

Last month I went along to a screening of The Connection, a brilliant documentary by Sydney journalist Shannon Harvey which explored the relationship between spiritual health and physical health. (Shoutout to the awesome team at Films for Change for bringing us these stirring cinematic experiences.) The most startling revelation for me was a medical researcher’s statement that our genes are not fixed – meditation can flip the switch on genes that cause disease. This means that through the simple regular practice of meditation we can actually alter our bodies at a cellular level. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how remarkable this is.

If you’ve dabbled in meditation but abandoned it because you were short of time (top tip: no one ‘finds’ time, they ‘make’ time) or thought you sucked at it (another tip: you don’t), I urge you to give it another crack. And then to keep going.

Here are some great places to go for meditation instruction and inspiration:

·         Google your local Buddhist centre, which is bound to be running workshops and sessions teaching meditation.

·        Headspace (www.headspace.com) – described as a gym for your mind, this app is a wonderful resource for rookies. It offers 10 free meditations and a more in-depth series to subscribers.

·        Omvana (www.omvana.com) – a constantly updated app placing a wide range of meditations at your disposal.

·        Belinda Davison (http://belindadavidson.com/free-resources) – she calls herself a psychic without a woo-woo bone in her body, and provides a series of free meditations focused on chakra clearing.

·        Tom Cronin (www.tomcronin.com) – a meditation teacher who offers online courses as well as workshops in Sydney. He also runs a fantastic free group meditation called the Stillness Project in the CBD on Monday nights, which I highly recommend.

On destiny and control

We always end up where we’re supposed to be.

This was a comment made at a reiki workshop I attended yesterday (brief sidebar: I’m on my way to reiki certification – woo!) that really got me thinking. Well, I’m a Scorpio, that’s what we do. Overanalyse, then overanalyse some more. It’s a lifestyle. Anyway, the woman who initially made this comment was sharing the story of what led her to train in reiki. It involved a long health battle for which western medicine was unable to provide solutions, prompting her to investigate alternative avenues. The physical relief she experienced, coupled with a dawning realisation that natural health was a natural fit for her, led her to ditch her career and train in the healing field. She feels that she has ended up exactly where she’s supposed to be.

I can relate. Seven years ago I was struggling in a high-pressure job on a weekly magazine with an erratic, borderline-personality-disordered boss. I prayed for help to manage my workload better; two weeks later I was made redundant. Not the solution I had in mind – bloody terrifying, actually – but it was, as it turns out, the right one. 


I knew this was the universe pushing me into freelance employment, but I let Fear take over and convince me I was too inexperienced/useless/inadequate to make it on my own. I took on a part-time job but instead of seeking out freelance work on the remaining work days I spent most of that time at home watching TV talk shows. I’m sure you can guess what happened 10 months later… I was made redundant from my part-time job. This time I knew I had to get my shit together and change tack. I could practically feel the universe’s boot print on my ass. That was seven years ago and I’ve been wholly self-employed ever since, and I can say categorically that this was absolutely the right thing for me both professionally and personally. It forced me to back myself and pursue income opportunities off my own bat, and as a by-product I’ve developed greater confidence. I’ve also had to work hard to sharpen the quality of everything I put my name on – because I have neither mentors to lean on nor mood-vampire colleagues/lazy bosses/corporate tedium to blame when my output is poor. I am solely accountable for every word I write and every hour I invoice for.

The point of that analogy is not to show what a slow learner I am (which is 100 per cent true) but to illustrate that sometimes you do, in fact, end up where you’re supposed to be – and the universe will not hesitate to give you a mighty great kick to get you there, as it did for me (twice). For example, you probably know someone who moved to a new city with their partner, and although the relationship ended they didn’t return to their home city because they’d found they belonged in the new location. It wasn’t the life they imagined – it was better. And if you’re familiar with the lyrical genius of Aussie singer/songwriter Pete Murray, you probably know that he was a promising rugby player until an injury shattered his dreams of sporting dominance. That was when he picked up a guitar and taught himself to play. You can’t hear his stylings and not believe that he was always destined for a path in music.

Also, because I believe no blog post is complete without a pop culture reference, here’s an example from Sex and the City. Remember when Charlotte was so desperate to be married she rushed up the aisle with Trey, even though they had no sexual chemistry (an absolute deal-breaker, IMHO)? Inevitably, the marriage ended but that process put her in the path of divorce lawyer Harry – who she would have overlooked in the past – and she found they had a deep and enduring connection.

But even though it seems to be true that we all end up in the right place eventually, I’m not entirely comfortable with the notion of the universe intervening to get us there. (I’m also not sure how this accounts for those people who die prematurely or alone – but that question is far too big for this particular post.) This seems somewhat disempowering – essentially, it means we don’t have as much ability to write the script for our own life as we had been led to believe. From what I can make out, although we have a massive amount of self-determination in terms of our life path – more than we realise, because we don’t fully appreciate how to harness this power – there is a large part of our course that’s pre-determined, and we have been armed with the skill set, talent base and personality traits (or at least the ability to develop them) to support that. Maybe the reason the universe might intervene is that sometimes we get so far down the wrong track we can’t find our way back on our own. And maybe we have to have been deeply down the wrong track to realise how right the other track really is.

Maybe that has happened to you? If so, I’d love to hear about it.

I didn't smile for a long time. I regret that

For a long period of time, maybe 15 years, I hated my wonky, misaligned teeth so much I used to put my hand in front of my face whenever I smiled. This became so automatic that when I finally got my teeth straightened at the age of 30, it took months of training to stop hiding my smile; the habit was that ingrained.

Friends, a smile is not a thing to be suppressed. It is the thing you do that makes you shine. It is the thing you do that makes a big impact on other people. It is the thing you do that improves your mood (it’s true – research shows it alters your brain activity in a way that’s consistent with a lift in mood). 

I’m annoyed at myself for hiding such a major part of what makes me sparkle for so long. And for such a painfully petty reason. I remember I even developed a ‘camera smile’ (this was in the days before digital photography, when it was much easier to avoid the camera) that didn’t involve opening my mouth! As you can probably imagine, it did not look even remotely warm nor sincere.

Remember late last year when Kim Kardashian said she avoids smiling because it causes wrinkles? There was an English woman interviewed on TV the other night who stopped smiling as a youngster for the same reason. She’s 50 now, which means she has not smiled for 40 years! I almost feel sorry for her that she’s had such a muted life. Of course, just because she’s not smiling doesn’t mean she’s unhappy – but really, what sort of happiness is that which cannot be fully and naturally expressed, and must be guarded as if it were a dangerous animal that might escape and wreak havoc?

I’m only guessing here, but I imagine that no one has ever got to the end of their life and regretted smiling and laughing so much. And as far as the wrinkle situation goes, I think Audrey Hepburn said it best when she declared that happy girls are the prettiest. 

Everyday heroes. I wanna see you be brave!

Following on from my post about non-conformity, I’ve been thinking more about bravery, and what it looks like. The reason for this: recently in my part of the world there was a news story about the survivors of the December 2014 Sydney Siege possibly receiving bravery medals as recognition of their ordeal. This sparked some public debate, with a prominent politician suggesting simply being a victim of crime, as horrific as this event was, didn’t come under the banner of bravery, and that medals should be reserved for extraordinary acts of heroism. I’ve no intention of wading into that particular debate, but I would like to riff on what the word ‘bravery’ actually describes, and whether I need to reframe my understanding of this powerful word.

To me, bravery is in the everyday choices we make to overcome Fear. The unfit woman who chooses to go to that gym class even though her inner-saboteur is telling her it won’t make any difference. The journalist who conducts interviews every day despite a stutter occasionally sneaking in and testing his composure. My sister, who is disabled, and dyes her hair blood red – because, she reasons, people are staring at her anyway.

I’ll never forget a conversation I once had with a friend who had thrown in her six-figure-salary job in IT to go to medical school for six years, which made her a poor student until she was well into her 30s. I told her I thought she was incredibly courageous, and her response floored me. She remarked that it wasn’t an act of bravado but of desperation. She had been miserable and felt she simply could not continue to live the way she had been living. I thought she had made a brave choice; she felt she had had no choice at all. As I pointed out to her, plenty of people feel disappointed with their lives but do nothing about it. They decide to accept the status quo rather than take the gamble of changing it. Deciding to make a change is brave, and worthy of applause.

What does bravery look like to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

Super-charged moons

What's better than the regular moon? The moon with super powers, that's what!

Thought I'd share this intriguing article about the supermoon tonight, and why it's so significant. Even if astrology isn't really your thing, it's worth taking this opportunity to really think about what you want to achieve this year. Because tonight would be a VERY good time to put that out to the Universe.

Read this article to find out more.